Let me first give you some figures on Internet pornography. The internet has 4.2 million pornographic websites. That means that 12 percent of all websites are porn websites. Internet pornography is an enormous industry, generating a revenue of more than 2.5 billion dollars a year. Furthermore, about 40 million adults regularly visit Internet pornography sites in the United States—and ten percent of those people admit to being addicted to Internet pornography. Viewing pornography on the internet, as John discussed, has become a “normal” part of our culture and it is certainly a huge part of internet culture. In this wiki, I would like to discuss the challenges that this cultural phenomenon of internet pornography has created for our legislators. Our legal system is designed to adapt to changing times, but it almost seems as if the internet has transformed our culture too radically and too quickly for our legal system to discover the appropriate answers and solutions. Let me explain. The major legal debate surrounding internet porn is that legislators must find a balance between protecting people, especially minors, from exposure to and harm from obscene/ pornographic material without infringing on individuals' First Amendment rights to freedom of speech. The feature of this issue that has made it most trying is that the lack of boundaries on the internet makes it difficult to protect one group of people (minors) without violating the rights of another group of people (porn-enthusiasts). In Miller v. California (1973), the Supreme Court decided that porn was not protected by the First Amendment and used a three-part test to determine whether certain content would be considered pornographic. This included the question of whether an average person applying contemporary community standards find that the work appeals to certain prurient interests. Another part of the test determined that it was pornography if the work depicted or described in an offensive way (as measured by community standards) sexual conduct that is specifically defined by law. There are many problems with the vagueness of this wording but the relevant question for this discussion is how does one apply “community standards” to the internet, which has created a global community, the biggest and most diverse community there is? Publishers have a responsibility to abide by the community standards to which they distribute their material. The Supreme Court ruled, in The Child Online Protection Act of 1998, that even though web publishers do not have the ability to limit consumers' access to their content, they still have the same obligation as magazine publishers to conform their content to the community standards of all of their consumers. This means that all communities, even the most liberal ones, must conform to the most severely conservative community standards. The enforcement of these rules depends on the current political environment. They were not strictly enforced during Clinton's presidency but were considered a high priority during Bush's presidency. Either way, legal problems remain. While the boundary-less nature of the internet has created new opportunities it has also created new problems.
Sources: Maahs, Jeff and John Liederbach. "Surfing for Porn" in Current Legal Issues in Criminal Justice. Ed. Craig Hemmens. Los Angeles: 2007.
Overview
Let me first give you some figures on Internet pornography. The internet has 4.2 million pornographic websites. That means that 12 percent of all websites are porn websites. Internet pornography is an enormous industry, generating a revenue of more than 2.5 billion dollars a year. Furthermore, about 40 million adults regularly visit Internet pornography sites in the United States—and ten percent of those people admit to being addicted to Internet pornography. Viewing pornography on the internet, as John discussed, has become a “normal” part of our culture and it is certainly a huge part of internet culture.In this wiki, I would like to discuss the challenges that this cultural phenomenon of internet pornography has created for our legislators. Our legal system is designed to adapt to changing times, but it almost seems as if the internet has transformed our culture too radically and too quickly for our legal system to discover the appropriate answers and solutions. Let me explain.
The major legal debate surrounding internet porn is that legislators must find a balance between protecting people, especially minors, from exposure to and harm from obscene/ pornographic material without infringing on individuals' First Amendment rights to freedom of speech. The feature of this issue that has made it most trying is that the lack of boundaries on the internet makes it difficult to protect one group of people (minors) without violating the rights of another group of people (porn-enthusiasts).
In Miller v. California (1973), the Supreme Court decided that porn was not protected by the First Amendment and used a three-part test to determine whether certain content would be considered pornographic. This included the question of whether an average person applying contemporary community standards find that the work appeals to certain prurient interests. Another part of the test determined that it was pornography if the work depicted or described in an offensive way (as measured by community standards) sexual conduct that is specifically defined by law. There are many problems with the vagueness of this wording but the relevant question for this discussion is how does one apply “community standards” to the internet, which has created a global community, the biggest and most diverse community there is?
Publishers have a responsibility to abide by the community standards to which they distribute their material. The Supreme Court ruled, in The Child Online Protection Act of 1998, that even though web publishers do not have the ability to limit consumers' access to their content, they still have the same obligation as magazine publishers to conform their content to the community standards of all of their consumers. This means that all communities, even the most liberal ones, must conform to the most severely conservative community standards.
The enforcement of these rules depends on the current political environment. They were not strictly enforced during Clinton's presidency but were considered a high priority during Bush's presidency. Either way, legal problems remain. While the boundary-less nature of the internet has created new opportunities it has also created new problems.
Sources: Maahs, Jeff and John Liederbach. "Surfing for Porn" in Current Legal Issues in Criminal Justice. Ed. Craig Hemmens. Los Angeles: 2007.
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